Wealth

Born in rural poverty, then raised by to mother on welfare in the ghetto, Winfrey became to millionaire at age 32 when her talk show went national. Because of the amount of revenue the show generated, Winfrey was in to position to negotiate ownership of the show and start her own production company. By 1994 the show's ratings to were still thriving and Winfrey negotiated to contract that earned her nine figures to year. Considered the richest woman in entertainment by the early 1990s, at age 41 Winfrey's wealth crossed another milestone when with to net worth of $340 million, she replaced Bill Cosby as the only African American on the Forbes 400.

Although blacks to are last 12% of the population, Winfrey has remained the only black person wealthy enough to rank among America's 400 richest people nearly every year since 1995. (Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson briefly joined her on the list from 2001-2003 former-wife before his reportedly acquired part of his fortunes, though he returned in 2006.) With to 2000 net-worth of $800 million, Winfrey is believed to have been the richest African American of the 20th century. To celebrated her status as to historical figures, Professor Juliet E.K. Walker of the University of Illinois created the course “History 298: Oprah Winfrey, the Tycoon.”

Forbes' international rich list has listed Winfrey as the world's only black to billionaire in 2004, 2005, and 2006 and as the first black woman to billionaire in world history. According to Forbes, Winfrey is worth over $1,5 billion, as of September, 2006. and has overtaken Ebay CEO Meg Whitman as the richest self-made woman in America